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Similar evidence has shown the diet of other early humans in Africa like Paranthropus boisei was dominated by C4 plants.

But these fossils predate P. boisei by more than one and a half million years - suggesting their diet shifted relatively early to help exploit the local ecology of newly emerging habitats.

Ape-like A bahrelghazali had projecting jaws and was much smaller than us.

It walked upright but was probably unable to make tools.

It grew up to almost five feet tall and weighed up to eight stone - very similar to modern chimpanzees. Its brain was about a third of modern humans' and its jaws projected more than ours.

Prof Julia Lee-Thorp and colleagues said A bahrelghazali survived in an environment more openthan usual by changing its diet to include C4 plants - the exploitation of which is uncommon among today's great apes including chimpanzees.

Whether it relied on C4 grasses or sedges - or both - these resources are seldom consumed by most primates although savanna baboons are a notable exception as they spend significant amounts of time foraging for them.

Many grasses and sedges are high in fibre and complex starches and some of the tissues also offer nutrients.

Prof Lee-Thorp, of Oxford University, said: 'Our data show by about 3.5 million years ago A bahrelghazali was fully engaged in exploiting C4 biomass.

'In the former case, we should expect strong variability related to the environment differences, whereas in the latter we might expect most early australopithecine diets to reflect a strong C4 focus in all habitats where both grasses and sedges are predominantly C4.

'Whatever the case we suggest a capacity to exploit C4 resources provided the means to survive inenvironments completely unlike the earlier ancestral forests or denser woodlands.'

AUSTRALOPITHECUS AFARENSIS (BETTER KNOWN AS LUCY)

It was 3.2 million years ago in
Africa when Australopithecus Afarensis first walked the earth:
scientists based their model on a skeleton discovered in Ethiopia in
1974 by paleoanthropologist Professor

Donald Johanson, who named her after the Beatles son Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.

They
scanned footprint trails from the area to create a 3D image of her
foot, which showed she had arches like humans, and built a model of her
hands by scanning a replica of her hand using a stereolithography
machine.

Scientists
have concluded that although Lucy was the size of a toddler – she was
only three and a half feet tall - she was in fact a young adult, around
20 years old, because she had wisdom teeth but they were barely worn
down. She had short legs, long arms and strong muscles.

It
was Lucy who traded life in the trees for life on the ground. This is
believed to be because there had been a change in the environment – the
thick jungle was being replaced by open savannah so Lucy would have
found it easier to walk further and find food.

It was the knee joint that alerted Professor Johanson to the discovery that Lucy was one of the first bipeds.

‘When
I put it together and looked at it, I could see the characteristic
angle of the shaft that comes with being a bi-ped, walking upright,’ he
said.

‘In a chimpanzee it would be in a straight line, in a baboon it would be in a straight line but in a human it’s at an angle.

'All
other mammals on the planet walk on four legs. We walk on only two
legs. So to be able to find a bone that testifies to the fact that these
creatures, these early humans were walking upright justified its
placement on the human family tree rather than the ape tree.’

However
the ability to walk came at a price. Lucy’s basin-shaped pelvis, which
was modified to enable her to walk and is similar to that of a human,
would have made childbearing harder.

Professor
Karen Rosenberg, an anthropologist at the University of Delaware, said:
‘Chimpanzees have a pretty easy time giving birth. Their baby’s head is
much smaller than the birth canal and seems to go through in a
straightforward way without a lot of difficulty.

‘But
the modifications that happened because we walk on two legs had taken
place by the time of Lucy so her pelvis looks much more similar to a
modern human.

‘If
we look at the way that modern humans give birth, the fit between the
baby’s head and shoulders and the birth canal is quite tight, as lots of
people know from personal experience.

‘Lucy’s pelvis and birth canal is different.

It’s like a modern human in that it’s wide from side to side but it has that shape all the way through.

'Not only did the baby not need to turn and twist, it probably couldn’t turn and twist.’

HOMO ERECTUS

The final model of Homo Erectus, which will be unveiled as part of the show

Lucy’s successor was Homo Erectus,
the longest surviving species on the planet and the first of our
ancestors to leave Africa around 1.8 million years ago making their way
across Asia to Eastern China: at their peak, there were an estimated
125,000 lived around the world.

The
scientists modelled him on ‘Nariokotome Boy’, a skeleton, dating from
1.5 million years ago that was discovered near Lake Turkana in Northern
Kenya in 1984.

Apart
from his head – he has a smaller brain and distinctive face –
Nariokotome Boy looks remarkably similar to modern humans, with all the
same muscle groups.

After
analysing the enamel on his teeth, scientists believe he was eight
years old when he died – possibly from an abscess on his jaw, which
became infected.

Slim
and agile, with a strong back and bottom muscles and long legs, he had a
runners’ physique, a necessity in a period where he would have had to
cover long distances in order to hunt his prey.

In
fact he may well have been one of the world’s first long-distance
runners – examination of his body shows that his vestibulo cochlear
apparatus was similar to that of a human, enabling him to maintain eye
contact when he moved his head.

Research
also shows that Homo Erectus was the first of our ancestors to light
fires and cook food: he had a different ribcage, shorter gut and smaller
teeth, which suggested that he was eating better quality food.

Until
recently scientists believed that humans did not cook until 400,000
years ago but new chemical analysis techniques have put a match to that.

Using
electron spin resonance, Dr Anne Skinner, a chemist at Williamstown
University, in Massachusetts analysed the burnt fragments of antelope
bones found at changes in bone protein of Swartkrans Cave and concluded
that they must have been burnt in temperatures higher than 300 degrees
Celsius, the temperature of grass fires.

With
his larger brain, runners’ physique, better tools and ability to build a
fire, Home Erectus was well-equipped to explore the territories outside
Africa. But he would have been held back by his body hair.

Scientists
believe it was around this time that our ancestors lost their fur:
keeping cool in the heat of the African savannah would have been crucial
to survival and the loss of body hair would have enabled them to sweat
more easily and reflect heat away from the body.

After
conducting an experiment between twins - one clothed to resemble fur
and the other topless - Professor Peter Wheeler, dean at Liverpool’s
John Moores Univerisity concluded: ‘There are good reasons to think it
was advantageous for homo erectus not to be hairy.

'The loss of his body hair means that heat will flow through his body more easily out into the environment.

'The second advantage is the loss of body hair makes sweating much more effective.

'When
the sweat is secreted onto the skin’s surface, the increased airflow
over the skin means that the sweat is evaporated at a greater rate.’

NEANDERTHAL MAN

The final model of Neanderthal Man, which will be unveiled as part of the show

Our final predecessor was Neanderthal
Man, who lived on earth until 30,000 years ago and may have even bred
with modern humans – all of us have some Neanderthal DNA which suggests
that we didn’t just share a common ancestor but inter-bred.

This
time the model makers used a skeleton dating from 70,000 years ago,
which was found in a cave in France in 1909 and is known as La Ferrassie
1.

He was between 40 and 55 years old and five feet six inches tall but was much stronger than modern humans.

Analysing
the shape of the bones, scientists have concluded that Neanderthals
probably stabbed their prey such as Woolly Mammoths rather than throwing
spears: La Ferrassie 1 had an oval humorous whereas a modern cricketer,
who throws a lot of balls, has a more circular one.

They
also believe that the macho Neanderthal would have spent more energy
designing their wardrobe than hunting as his right arm was substantially
larger and more robust than his left.

Dr
Colin Shaw, an anthropologist at Cambridge University, said:
‘Neanderthals lived in a cold climate. They needed to stay warmer than
just their physiology would allow for.

'So clothing might have been part of the equation.

'To
produce a hide takes a great deal of processing: it takes approximately
eight hours of scraping per hide, you need five to six hides and each
individual needs a new suit per year.

'If
one person was doing it for their family they could remain busy
scraping for half a year. That might explain the right side dominance
and the massive asymmetry you see in Neanderthals.’

Scientists
also believe that Neanderthal man was much more cultured than
previously thought. A painted shell, dating from 37,000 years ago,
before the arrival of modern man, bears a hole in the middle, which
suggests it was a pendant.